Levon Helm Early years when was Helm born? Arkansas in the 1940s who was Helm born to? His parents, Nell and Diamond Helm, Did Helm have any siblings? They encouraged their children to play and sing at a young age.
Where did Helm go to school?
Where did Levon Helm go to school?
Born in Elaine, Arkansas, Helm grew up in Turkey Scratch, a hamlet of Marvell, Arkansas. His parents, Nell and Diamond Helm, were cotton farmers and great lovers of music. They encouraged their children to play and sing at a young age. Young Lavon (as he was christened) began playing the guitar at the age of eight and also played drums during his formative years. He saw Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys at the age of six and decided then to become a musician.  Arkansas in the 1940s and 50s stood at the confluence of a variety of musical styles--blues, country and R&B--that, when merged, later became known as rock and roll. Helm was influenced by all these styles, which he heard on the Grand Ole Opry on radio station WSM and R&B on radio station WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee. He also saw traveling shows such as F.S. Walcott's Rabbit's Foot Minstrels that featured top African-American artists of the time.  Another early influence on Helm was the work of the harmonica player, guitarist and singer Sonny Boy Williamson II, who played blues and early rhythm and blues on the King Biscuit Time radio show on KFFA in Helena and performed regularly in Marvell with blues guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr. In his 1993 autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band, Helm describes watching Williamson's drummer, James "Peck" Curtis, intently during a live performance in the early 1950s and later imitating this R&B drumming style. Helm established his first band, the Jungle Bush Beaters, while in high school.  Helm also witnessed some of the earliest performances by southern country music, blues and rockabilly artists such as Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty, Bo Diddley and fellow Arkansan Ronnie Hawkins. At age 17, Helm began playing in clubs and bars around Helena. CANNOTANSWER
Helm established his first band, the Jungle Bush Beaters, while in high school.
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm (May 26, 1940 – April 19, 2012) was an American musician and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and one of the three lead vocalists for The Band. Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, and creative drumming style, highlighted on many of the Band's recordings, such as "The Weight", "Up on Cripple Creek", and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

Helm also had a successful career as a film actor, appearing as Loretta Lynn's father in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), as Chuck Yeager's friend and colleague Captain Jack Ridley in The Right Stuff (1983), as a Tennessee firearms expert in Shooter (2007), and as General John Bell Hood in In the Electric Mist (2009).

In 1998, Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer which caused him to lose his singing voice. After treatment, his cancer eventually went into remission, and he gradually regained the use of his voice. His 2007 comeback album Dirt Farmer earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008, and in November of that year, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 91 in its list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time,. In 2010, Electric Dirt, his 2009 follow-up to Dirt Farmer, won the first Grammy Award for Best Americana Album, a category inaugurated in 2010. In 2011, his live album Ramble at the Ryman won the Grammy in the same category. In 2016, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 22 in its list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time.

Biography

Early years
Born Mark Lavon Helm in Elaine, Arkansas, Helm grew up in Turkey Scratch, a hamlet of Marvell, Arkansas. His parents, Nell and Diamond Helm, were cotton farmers who shared a strong affinity for music. They encouraged their children to play and sing at a young age. He saw Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys at the age of six and decided to become a musician. Helm began playing the guitar at the age of eight and also played drums.

Arkansas in the 1940s and '50s stood at the confluence of a variety of musical styles, including traditional Delta blues, electric blues, country (including old-time music) and the incipient genre of rhythm and blues. Helm was influenced by each of these styles, which he heard on the Grand Ole Opry on radio station WSM and R&B on radio station WLAC in Nashville. He also saw the last vestiges of minstrelsy and other traveling variety shows, such as F. S. Wolcott's Original Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, which featured top Black artists of the era.

A key early influence on Helm was Sonny Boy Williamson II, who played electric blues and early rhythm and blues on the King Biscuit Time radio show on KFFA in Helena and performed regularly in Marvell with blues guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr. In his 1993 autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band, Helm describes watching Williamson's drummer, James "Peck" Curtis, intently during a live performance in the early 1950s and later imitating this R&B drumming style. Helm established his first band, the Jungle Bush Beaters, while in high school.

Helm also witnessed some of the earliest performances by early rock and roll and rockabilly artists, including Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty, Bo Diddley and fellow Arkansan Ronnie Hawkins. At age 17, Helm began playing in clubs and bars around Helena.

The Hawks
While he was still in high school, Helm was invited to join Ronnie Hawkins's band, the Hawks, a popular bar and club act in the South and Canada where rockabilly acts were very successful. Helm's mother insisted that he graduate from high school before touring with Hawkins, but he was able to play with the Hawks locally on weekends. After his graduation in 1958, Helm joined the Hawks as a full-time member and they moved to Toronto where they signed with Roulette Records in 1959 and released several singles, including a few hits.

Helm reported in his autobiography that fellow Hawks band members had difficulty pronouncing "Lavon" correctly and started calling him "Levon" ( ) because it was easier to pronounce.

In 1961, Helm with bassist Rick Danko backed guitarist Lenny Breau on several tracks recorded at Hallmark Studios in Toronto. These tracks are included on the 2003 release The Hallmark Sessions.

By the early 1960s, Helm and Hawkins had recruited an all-Canadian lineup of musicians: guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manuel, and organist Garth Hudson, all of whom were multi-instrumentalists. In 1963, the band parted ways with Hawkins and started touring as Levon and the Hawks and later as the Canadian Squires, before changing back to the Hawks. They recorded two singles but remained mostly a popular touring bar band in Texas, Arkansas, Canada, and on the East Coast of the United States where they found regular summer club gigs on the New Jersey shore.

By the mid-1960s, songwriter and musician Bob Dylan was interested in performing electric rock music and asked the Hawks to be his backing band. Disheartened by fans' negative response to Dylan's new sound, Helm left the group in the autumn of 1965 for what turned out to be a two-year layoff, being replaced by a range of touring drummers (most notably Mickey Jones) and Manuel, who began to double on the instrument. Following time with his family in Arkansas and subsequent sojourns in Los Angeles (where he experimented with LSD and performed with Bobby Keys), Memphis and New Orleans (exemplified by work on a nearby oil platform), the eventual result was his return to the group in the autumn of 1967.

After the Hawks toured Europe with Dylan, they followed him back to the U.S. and settled near his home in Woodstock, New York, remaining under salary to Dylan. The Hawks recorded a large number of demos and practice tapes in nearby West Saugerties, New York, playing almost daily with Dylan, who had completely withdrawn from public life following a motorcycle accident in July 1966. These recordings were widely bootlegged and were partially released officially in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. The songs and themes developed during this period played a crucial role in the group's future direction and style. The Hawks also began writing their own songs, with Danko and Manuel also sharing writing credits with Dylan on a few songs.

The Band

Helm returned to the group, then referred to simply as "the band", as it was known around Woodstock. While contemplating a recording contract, Helm had dubbed the band "The Crackers". However, when Robertson and their new manager Albert Grossman worked out the contracts, the group's name was given as "The Band". Under these contracts, the Band was contracted to Grossman, who in turn contracted their services to Capitol Records. This arrangement allowed the Band to release recordings on other labels if the work was done in support of Dylan. Thus the Band was able to play on Dylan's Planet Waves album and to release The Last Waltz, both on other labels. The Band also recorded their own album Music from Big Pink (1968), which catapulted them into stardom. Helm was the Band's only American member.

On Music from Big Pink, Manuel was the most prominent vocalist and Helm sang backup and harmony, with the exception of "The Weight". However, as Manuel's health deteriorated and Robbie Robertson's songwriting increasingly looked to the South for influence and direction, subsequent albums relied more and more on Helm's vocals, alone or in harmony with Danko. Helm was primarily a drummer and vocalist and increasingly sang lead, although, like all his bandmates, he was also a multi-instrumentalist. On occasion Manuel switched to drums while Helm played mandolin, guitar, or bass guitar (while Danko played fiddle) on some songs. Helm played the 12-string guitar backdrop to "Daniel and the Sacred Harp".

Helm remained with the Band until their farewell performance on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, which was the subject of the documentary film The Last Waltz, directed by Martin Scorsese. Helm repudiated his involvement with The Last Waltz shortly after the completion of its final scenes. In his autobiography Helm criticized the film and Robertson who produced it.

Solo, acting and the reformed Band
With the breakup of the Band in its original form, Helm began working on a solo-ensemble album, Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars, with Paul Butterfield, Fred Carter, Jr., Emmeretta Marks, Howard Johnson, Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Booker T. Jones, and others. Levon Helm and the RCO All-Stars recorded Live at The Palladium NYC, New Year's Eve 1977. The CD album released in March 2006 features over one hour of blues-rock music performed by an ensemble featuring Levon Helm (drums/vocals), Dr. John (keys/vocals), Paul Butterfield (harmonica/vocals), Fred Carter (guitar/vocals), Donald "Duck" Dunn (bass), Cropper (guitar), Lou Marini (saxophones), Howard Johnson (tuba/baritone sax), Tom "Bones" Malone (trombone), and Alan Rubin (trumpet).

This was followed in 1978 by the solo album Levon Helm. More solo albums were released in 1980 and 1982: American Son and (once again) Levon Helm, both produced by Fred Carter, Jr. He also participated in musician Paul Kennerley's 1980 country music concept album, The Legend of Jesse James singing the role of Jesse James alongside Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Charlie Daniels, Albert Lee, and others.

In addition to his work as musician, Helm also acted in several dramatic films. He was cast as Loretta Lynn's father in the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter, followed three years later by a role as U.S. Air Force test pilot and engineer Capt. Jack Ridley, in The Right Stuff. Helm was also the latter film's narrator. 1987's under-appreciated End of the Line featured Levon as a small-town railroad employee alongside Wilford Brimley and Kevin Bacon. He played a Kentucky backwoods preacher in Fire Down Below. He played an eccentric old man in the 2005 film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and appeared as Gen. John Bell Hood in the 2009 film In the Electric Mist. He also had a brief cameo as a weapons expert in the film Shooter with Mark Wahlberg.

In 1983, the Band reunited without Robbie Robertson, at first playing with an expanded lineup that included the entire Cate Brothers Band, but in 1985 paring down and adding Jim Weider on guitar. In 1986, while on tour Manuel committed suicide. Helm, Danko, and Hudson continued in the Band, adding pianist Richard Bell and drummer/vocalist Randy Ciarlante and releasing the album Jericho in 1993 and High on the Hog in 1996. The final album from the Band was the 30th anniversary album, Jubilation released in 1998.

In 1989, Helm and Danko toured with drummer Ringo Starr as part of his All-Starr Band. Other musicians in the band included singer and guitarist Joe Walsh, singer and pianist Dr. John, singer and guitarist Nils Lofgren, singer Billy Preston, saxophonist Clarence Clemons, and drummer Jim Keltner. Garth Hudson was a guest on accordion on some dates. Helm played drums and harmonica and sang "The Weight" and "Up on Cripple Creek" each night.

In the televised 1989 Juno Awards celebration, the Band was inducted into the Juno Awards' Hall of Fame. Helm was not present at the ceremony, but a taped segment of him offering his thanks was broadcast after the acceptance speeches by Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson. Richard Manuel's children accepted the award on behalf of their father. To conclude the televised special, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Robbie Robertson performed "The Weight" with Blue Rodeo.

Helm performed with Danko and Hudson as the Band in 1990 at Roger Waters's epic The Wall – Live in Berlin Concert in Germany to an estimated 300,000 to half a million people.

In 1993, Helm published an autobiography entitled This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band.

The Midnight Ramble
Helm's performance career in the 2000s revolved mainly around the Midnight Ramble at his home and studio, "The Barn," in Woodstock, New York. These concerts, featuring Helm and various musical guests, allowed him to raise money for his medical bills and to resume performing after a bout with cancer that nearly ended his career.

In the late 1990s, Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer after suffering hoarseness. Advised to undergo a laryngectomy, he instead underwent an arduous regimen of radiation treatments at Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The tumor was then successfully removed, but Helm's vocal cords were damaged, and his clear, powerful tenor voice was replaced by a quiet rasp. Initially Helm only played drums and relied on guest vocalists at the Rambles, but eventually his singing voice grew stronger. On January 10, 2004, he sang again at his Ramble sessions. In 2007, during production of Dirt Farmer, Helm estimated that his singing voice was 80 percent recovered.

The Levon Helm Band featured his daughter Amy Helm, Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, Jim Weider (The Band's last guitarist), Jimmy Vivino, Mike Merritt, Brian Mitchell, Erik Lawrence, Steven Bernstein, Howard Johnson (tuba player in the horn section on the Band's Rock of Ages and The Last Waltz), Jay Collins (Helm's now former son-in-law), Byron Isaacs, and blues harmonica player Little Sammy Davis. Helm hosted Midnight Rambles that were open to the public at his home in Woodstock.

The Midnight Ramble was an outgrowth of an idea Helm explained to Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz. Earlier in the 20th century, Helm recounted, traveling medicine shows and music shows such as F. S. Wolcott's Original Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, featuring African-American blues singers and dancers, would put on titillating performances in rural areas. (This was also turned into a song by the Band, "The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show," with the name altered so the lyric was easier to sing.)

"After the finale, they'd have the midnight ramble," Helm told Scorsese. With young children off the premises, the show resumed: "The songs would get a little bit juicier. The jokes would get a little funnier and the prettiest dancer would really get down and shake it a few times. A lot of the rock and roll duck walks and moves came from that."

Artists who performed at the Rambles include Helm's former bandmate Garth Hudson, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Mavis Staples, Chris Robinson, Allen Toussaint, Donald Fagen and Jon Herington of Steely Dan, Jimmy Vivino (of the house band on Late Night with Conan O'Brien), the Max Weinberg 7, My Morning Jacket, Billy Bob Thornton, Alexis P. Suter, Sean Costello, the Muddy Waters Tribute Band, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Carolyn Wonderland, Kris Kristofferson, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Justin Townes Earle, Bow Thayer, Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, Rickie Lee Jones, Kate Taylor, Ollabelle, the Holmes Brothers, Catherine Russell, Norah Jones, Arlen Roth, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Phil Lesh (along with his sons Grahame and Brian), Hot Tuna (Jorma Kaukonen introduced the group as "the Secret Squirrels"), Michael Angelo D'Arrigo with various members of the Sistine Chapel, Johnny Johnson, Ithalia, David Bromberg, the Youngers, and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

During this period, Helm switched to the matched grip and adopted a less busy, greatly simplified drumming style, as opposed to the traditional grip he used during his years with the Band.

Helm was busy touring every year during the 2000s, generally traveling by tour bus to venues in eastern Canada and the eastern United States. After 2007, he performed in large venues such the Beacon Theater in New York. Dr. John and Warren Haynes (the Allman Brothers Band, Gov't Mule) and Garth Hudson played at the concerts along with several other guests. At a show in Vancouver Elvis Costello joined to sing "Tears of Rage". The Alexis P. Suter Band was a frequent opening act. Helm was a favorite of radio personality Don Imus and was frequently featured on Imus in the Morning. In the summer of 2009, it was reported that a reality television series centering on the Midnight Ramble was in development.

In 2012, Levon Helm and his "midnight rambles" were featured on the PBS Arts site, "Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders," including a poignant last interview with PBS's Marco Werman.

Dirt Farmer and comeback
The autumn of 2007 saw the release of Dirt Farmer, Helm's first studio solo album since 1982. Dedicated to his parents and co-produced by his daughter Amy, the album combines traditional tunes Levon recalled from his youth with newer songs (by Steve Earle, Paul Kennerley, and others) which flow from similar historical streams. The album was released to almost immediate critical acclaim, and earned him a Grammy Award in the Traditional Folk Album category for 2007. Also in 2007, Helm recorded "Toolin' Around Woodstock", and album with Arlen Roth on which Levon played drums and sang Sweet Little 16 and "Crying Time." This album also featured Levon's daughter Amy, and Roth's daughter Lexie, along with Sonny Landreth and Bill Kirchen.

Helm declined to attend the Grammy Awards ceremony, instead holding a "Midnight Gramble" and celebrating the birth of his grandson, Lavon (Lee) Henry Collins.

In 2008, Helm performed at Warren Haynes's Mountain Jam Music Festival in Hunter, New York playing alongside Haynes on the last day of the three-day festival. Helm also joined guitarist Bob Weir and his band RatDog on stage as they closed out the festival. Helm performed to great acclaim at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.

Helm drummed on a couple of tracks for Jorma Kaukonen's February 2009 album River of Time, recorded at the Levon Helm studio.

Helm released the album Electric Dirt on his own label on June 30, 2009. Like Dirt Farmer, an aim of Electric Dirt was to capture of feel of Helm's Midnight Rambles. The album won a best album Grammy for the newly created Americana category in 2010. Helm performed on the CBS television program Late Show with David Letterman on July 9, 2009. He also toured that same year in a supporting role with the band Black Crowes.

A documentary on Helm's day-to-day life, entitled Ain't in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm was released in March 2010. Directed by Jacob Hatley, it made its debut at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas and went on to be screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June 2010. The film had a limited release in select theaters in the United States in the spring of 2013 and was released on DVD and Blu-ray later that year.

On May 11, 2011, Helm released Ramble at the Ryman, a live album recorded during his performance of September 17, 2008 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The album features Helm's band playing six songs by the Band and other cover material, including some songs from previous Helm solo releases. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Americana Album.

Illness and death

In April 2012, during the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cleveland, Robbie Robertson sent "love and prayers" to Helm, fueling speculation about Helm's health. Helm had previously cancelled a number of performances, citing health issues or a slipped disk in his back; his final performances took place in Tarrytown, New York at Tarrytown Music Hall on March 24, and a final Midnight Ramble (with Moonalice as the opening act) in Woodstock on March 31.

On April 17, 2012, Helm's wife Sandy and daughter Amy revealed that he had end-stage throat cancer. They posted the following message on Helm's website:

On April 18, Robertson revealed on his Facebook page that he had a long visit with Helm at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center the previous Sunday. On the same day, Garth Hudson posted on his personal website that he was "too sad for words". He then left a link for a video of himself and the Alexis P. Suter Band performing Bob Dylan's song "Knocking on Heaven's Door". Helm died on April 19, 2012, at 1:30 p.m. (EDT) due to complications from throat cancer at age 71.

Fans were invited to a public wake at Helm's Barn studio complex on April 26. Approximately 2,000 fans came to pay their respects to the rock icon. The following day, after a private funeral service and a procession through the streets of Woodstock, Helm was interred in the Woodstock Cemetery, within sight of the grave of his longtime bandmate and friend Rick Danko. Former President Bill Clinton issued a statement following Helm's passing.

Legacy
George Harrison said that while writing his 1970 song "All Things Must Pass", he imagined Levon Helm singing it.

Elton John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin named the song "Levon" after Helm, although the song is not actually about him. Both John and Taupin cited that they were inspired by Helm; Taupin saying in various interviews that they would "go down to their favourite record stores to buy The Band's records" along with Elton. In 1994, Helm was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Band.

Marc Cohn wrote the song "Listening to Levon" in 2007.
"The Man behind the Drums," written by Robert Earl Keen and Bill Whitbeck, appeared on Keen's 2009 album The Rose Hotel.
Tracy K. Smith's 2011 poem "Alternate Take", included in her Pulitzer Prize–winning collection Life on Mars, is dedicated to Helm. On the day of Helm's death, April 19, 2012, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, in a concert at the First Bank Center in Broomfield, Colorado, paid tribute to Levon by performing their song "The Best of Everything" and dedicating it to him.

At a concert on May 2, 2012, at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed "The Weight" as a tribute to Helm. Springsteen called Helm "one of the greatest, greatest voices in country, rockabilly and rock 'n' roll ... staggering ... while playing the drums. Both his voice and his drumming were so incredibly personal. He had a feel on the drums that comes out of certain place in the past and you can't replicate it." Springsteen also said it was one of the songs that he had played with drummer Max Weinberg in Weinberg's audition with the band.

On June 2, 2012, at Mountain Jam, Gov't Mule along with the Levon Helm Band (with Lukas Nelson coming on stage for the closing song) played a tribute set, including "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Up on Cripple Creek,""It Makes No Difference," and closing with "The Weight".

A tribute concert called Love for Levon took place at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey on October 3, 2012. The concert featured many special guests who had collaborated with and were inspired by Helm and the Band, including Roger Waters,    Garth Hudson, Joe Walsh, Gregg Allman, Bruce Hornsby, Jorma Kaukonen, John Mayer, Mavis Staples, My Morning Jacket, Marc Cohn, John Hiatt, Allen Toussaint, Jakob Dylan, Mike Gordon, and others. Proceeds from the concert were to "help support the lasting legacy of Levon Helm by helping his estate keep ownership of his home, barn and studio, and to continue the Midnight Ramble Sessions".

At the 2013 Grammy Awards, the Zac Brown Band, Mumford & Sons, Elton John, Mavis Staples, T-Bone Burnett, and Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard performed "The Weight" as a tribute to Levon and other recently deceased musicians. They also dedicated the song to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. In May 2013, the New York State Legislature approved a resolution to name State Route 375—the road which connects State Route 28 with the town of Woodstock—"Levon Helm Memorial Boulevard". Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill on June 20, 2013. In July 2017, U.S. 49 from Marvell, Arkansas to Helena–West Helena was named The Levon Helm Memorial Highway by Act 810 of the Arkansas State Legislature. The Levon Helm Legacy Project is raising money to commission a bronze bust of Helm and to restore his boyhood home. The house, originally located in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, was moved in 2015 to Marvell, where Helm attended school.

Personal life
Helm met singer-songwriter Libby Titus in April 1969, while the Band was recording its second album. They began a lengthy relationship which produced daughter Amy Helm (born December 3, 1970). Amy formed the band Ollabelle and performed with her father's band at the Midnight Rambles and other concerts.

Helm met Sandra Dodd in 1975 in California, while he was still involved with Titus. Helm and Dodd were married on September 7, 1981. They had no children together.

Discography

Studio
Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars (1977)
Levon Helm (1978)
American Son (1980)
Levon Helm (1982)
Dirt Farmer (2007)
Electric Dirt (2009)

Live
The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume One (2006)
The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume Two (2006)
Levon Helm & the RCO All Stars: Live at the Palladium NYC, New Years Eve 1977 (2006)
FestivalLink.Net presents: Levon Helm Band MerleFest Ramble (MerleFest, NC 4/26/08)
Ramble at the Ryman (2011)
The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume Three (2014)

Other
The Legend of Jesse James (1980)
Souvenir, Vol. 1 (1998)
The Imus Ranch Record (2008)
The Imus Ranch Record II (2010)
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams (2011)

With Muddy Waters
The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album (Chess, 1975)

Filmography

References

External links

[ Allmusic]

 
1940 births
2012 deaths
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American country singer-songwriters
American country rock musicians
American folk rock musicians
American male singer-songwriters
American mandolinists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock drummers
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Grammy Award winners
Male actors from Arkansas
People from Phillips County, Arkansas
Singer-songwriters from Arkansas
The Band members
Vanguard Records artists
20th-century Canadian male musicians
Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band members
The Frighteners (not to be confused with the film of the same title) is a 1989 spy novel by Donald Hamilton, continuing the adventures of his creation, assassin Matt Helm.

Hamilton took a break from writing Matt Helm novels after this book; the next volume would not appear until 1992.

Plot summary
Helm is assigned to impersonate a rich oil baron in order to track down a shipment of weapons before it can be used to overthrow the Mexican government.

Matt Helm starts by taking the place of an oil millionaire -- one of the assignments where Mac is helping another agency by loaning out the services of his agent, Matt Helm. As usual, Mac is not doing this from purely altruistic purposes and gives Matt his usual warning  - "Don't trust anyone" in the beginning of the novel. Head of the agency borrowing Matt Helm, a man called Somerset, wants Matt to go into Mexico and help trace a shipment of illegal arms, supposedly being smuggled to be supplied to Mexican revolutionaries by the said millionaire Horace Hosmer Cody.

In the beginning of the novel, Cody is arrested by Somerset's people and Helm takes his place with a make up job that he thinks will fool no one and it doesn't. Almost all of the story takes place in Mexico where Matt once again runs into his old ally Ramon Solana-Ruiz of the Mexican security.

The novel has much intrigue and is typical of Matt Helm style action. Most of the characters turn out to be different than from what they are portrayed at the beginning of the story and many of them go through transformation, including some of the dead characters. Matt, of course, succeeds in the mission completing all of the objectives, sometimes with help from others.

External links
Synopsis and summary

1989 American novels
Matt Helm novels
Novels set in Mexico
Ballantine Books books Frances Helm (October 14, 1923 - December 30, 2006) was an American stage, film, and television actress whose performing career spanned nearly fifty years.

Early life
She was born Mary Frances Helm in Panama City, Florida. Her parents were Thomas William Helm II and Grace Spencer. Her father started as a bookkeeper for the railroad industry then became an accountant for the state of Virginia, moving the family to Richmond when Helm was very young. She had one older brother. Helm graduated from J. A. C. Chandler Junior High School in June 1937. She graduated from John Marshall High School in June 1940.

From the age of ten Helm took piano and voice lessons. Later she studied with Mary Barbour Dixon, who would remain her drama teacher and coach all through secondary school and college. Helm attended the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) from Fall 1940 through Spring 1942, majoring in Speech and Dramatics. Helm was a member of RPI's Theater Associates, which mounted productions at the school using students and the occasional visiting professional actor. Helm and other RPI drama students also did broadcasts of play readings on the school's radio station. While at the school, Helm dropped her first name for stage billing.

During her last term at RPI, her brother returned to Richmond after being wounded at Pearl Harbor. A Radioman 2/C in the USN, Thomas W. Helm had kept firing an antiaircraft gun during the attack despite being severely wounded; the Navy credited him with bringing down a Japanese aircraft. Invalided out of the service in April 1942, he was used for recruiting and bond drives, with his sister accompanying him. She was pictured at Red Cross events and dances with her brother and other servicemen. Frances Helm also joined other volunteer actors to perform a parody of an old-fashioned melodrama, Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, at military bases in Virginia and Maryland.

Early stage career
After graduating from RPI, Helm moved to New York City, where she took additional drama training at Columbia University while modeling in fashion shows for the Powers Agency. She also worked in radio, both as a voice actress and a personality for variety shows. For one radio show called "Blind Date", hosted by Arlene Francis, Helm was matched with a G.I. for an evening at the Stork Club.

During late 1945 Helm signed up for a theatrical trial by fire, a six-month stint with one of the Clare Tree Major Touring Companies. She performed in The Golden Apple by Lady Gregory, a short play based on an Irish fairy story.

Come September 1946 Helm joined a more traditional touring company with a revival of Life with Father. Cast as "Mary Skinner", the primary love interest, Helm had a lot of publicity during the tour of the Eastern United States. The tour traveled by a large private bus with an attached trailer for sets and props, enabling it to play small towns without train service. The tour finished up in Texas during early March 1947.

From April thru May 1947 Helm made an independent color film called The Clam-digger's Daughter, which was never distributed to theaters for exhibition. Helm credited the film, shot on location in Cape Charles, Virginia, with restoring her Southern accent.
 Living up North has made me lose my accent twice. I got it back the first time by moving in with six Mississippi girls who lived in New York, and the second time by  appearing in a "made-in-Virginia" movie.

She performed in summer stock during 1947 at the Green Mountain Playhouse in Middlebury, Vermont. From June 1948 Helm appeared in summer stock on Long Island in Parlor Story, which had a short run on Broadway the year before. She then starred in Years Ago, a much more successful recent Broadway comedy.

Mister Roberts
By August 1948 Helm had joined the national touring company for Mister Roberts, while the original was then in its sixth month on Broadway. Helm was the only female in the large cast, which included her then husband Robert Keith Jr, who was still using his birth name for billing at the time. The play starred Richard Carlson, James Rennie, Murray Hamilton, and Robert Burton, with a young Cliff Robertson. 
After several weeks in Detroit, the play went to Chicago for a two-week run that turned into twelve months.

While playing Chicago, Helm and other cast members of Mister Roberts put on free plays at veteran's homes in the area. The local newspaper printed photos of Helm with different members of the cast nearly every month, emphasizing her as the only woman in the play. At eleven months into the run the Chicago Tribune published a photo of Helm with her husband in their roles as "Lt. Ann Girard" and "Mannion".

From Chicago the touring company for Mister Roberts moved to Pittsburgh's Nixon Theater in September 1949, with John Forsythe taking over the titular role and Jackie Cooper playing "Ensign Pulver". As with critics in Detroit and Chicago, the Pittsburgh reviewer praised Helm for her delivery while noting the brevity of her part. The tour then went to one and two week runs at smaller cities, finally finishing up with a three-month booking in Boston that ended in April 1950. Helm was so reliable in playing every show that the tour finally dispensed with having an understudy for her three minutes on stage.

Early television
Helm's first television appearance was for a program called Hollywood Screen Test during October 1950. She did an episode of Philco Television Playhouse in May 1951 followed by an episode of Kraft Television Theatre in November. All of these programs were originally broadcast live from New York City, though the latter program was apparently recorded by kinoscope and re-broadcast to the West Coast the following month.

The following year she guest starred in episodes of Adventures of Ellery Queen and The Web, both thirty minute live broadcasts. The latter was also recorded by kinoscope and re-broadcast in March 1952. Her third program in as many months was for Armstrong Circle Theater, another New York live broadcast.  She did another The Web episode in March 1952, her first TV work alongside her then husband.

Her 1952 performing year having been front-loaded with TV work during the first quarter, Helm did four weekly summer stock plays in Bangor, Maine during June, then one more Television Playhouse episode in November.

She had little performing work in 1953: an uncredited bit part in Never Wave at a WAC, followed by a highly praised week playing "Stella Kowalski" in a stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire, another television episode, then four weeks reprising her roles in Detective Story and Mister Roberts.

Valiant Lady
During 1954 Helm toured with Joe E. Brown from July through October in The Show-Off. Discovering in December 1954 that she had been secretly divorced by her husband five months earlier, Helm was forced to take whatever performing work she could find. Since she was still maintaining residency in New York, Helm took on a soap opera role, as "Linda Kendall" in Valiant Lady. This fifteen minute television program was broadcast live daily from CBS studios in Manhattan. Helm played a woman with mental issues, which years later her mother said was the hardest role to watch her daughter perform.

Helm's exact tenure on the show is difficult to verify. Credited with 246 episodes during calendar year 1955, the only reliable reference date is a newspaper photo from July 17, 1955, showing her, Sue Randall, and Flora Campbell wearing shorts in Central Park while being rehearsed by director Herb Kenwith. It was certainly over by early November 1955, when Helm did a series of plays at the Paper Mill Playhouse for producer Frank Carrington and an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents. Whatever the dates were, it was Helm's longest recurring television role, and a measure of her determination to remain on the East Coast so long as it was professionally possible.

Coastal commuter

1956-1958

By 1956 the great majority of television work was in Southern California, and Helm would have to commute between the coasts. She made an episode of Matinee Theater in April 1956 that producer Aubrey Schenck saw; he cast her in the film Revolt at Fort Laramie as a result. After two more episodes of Matinee Theater, she returned to New York to take over Bethel Leslie's role of "Rachel Brown" in the original Broadway production of Inherit the Wind. Helm joined the production in November 1956 and remained with it until its closing in June 1957.

The remainder of 1957 saw her doing two minor plays. Career was already an off-Broadway success when Helm joined it for a week in Philadelphia. One Foot in the Door, with June Havoc and David White, had its premiere with a ten-day tryout in Philadelphia followed by one week in Boston. Critics in both cities panned it.

With the flop of One Foot in the Door, Helm had to return to the West Coast for more television in late spring 1958. She did three episodes of two different series, but returned to New York later that year for two episodes of a new show called New York Confidential. This show was mainly filmed in New York, but one episode Helm did was made in Jacksonville, Florida.

1959-1960

She spent late spring and summer of 1959 in a center staged road company production of Look Homeward, Angel, playing engagements in Miami, Philadelphia, and San Diego. While on the West Coast, she filmed an episode of The Millionaire.

Helm returned to the East Coast for trial runs of The Deadly Game, an adaption of A Dangerous Game, during January 1960. After the short tryouts, the play moved to Broadway but lasted only 39 performances from February thru March 1960. As with Mister Roberts, Helm was the only woman in the cast, and appeared only briefly on stage in the final scene. She took advantage of this situation to see the opening acts of other plays then performing on Broadway, telling a columnist "I'm waiting for the book versions so I can see how these plays end".

1961-1963

For 1961 Helm did episodes of six television shows, five of them on the West Coast and one in New York. Early 1962 saw her do two episodes of Everglades! on location in her native Florida.

She then took the female lead in the West Coast premiere of Critic's Choice, which opened mid-May 1962 in Los Angeles. Meant for a short run, the production was a hit, running so long the original leading man Edward Binns had to be replaced by Ted Knight due to prior performing commitments. As a contrast, a columnist mentioned that while performing the play at nights, Helm went to the Warner Brothers Studio to make an episode of 77 Sunset Strip during the day. During its tenth week the production was converted from front staging to center staging; it closed two weeks later.

Helm also took part in filming The Ugly American in 1962, playing secretary to Marlon Brando's ambassador.

Later that year, Helm temporarily took over the role of "Nancy Pollock" on The Edge of Night when actress Ann Flood took three months maternity leave.

In February 1963 Helm reprised her role in Critic's Choice with Hans Conried for a one-week run in Louisville, Kentucky. A month later she married for the second time.

Later career
After the birth of her daughter in late spring 1964, Helm resumed working in October of that year. She temporarily took on the role of "Susan Dunbar" on The Secret Storm, replacing Mary Foskett, who had moved to the West Coast. The show, like many soaps, was still made in New York City at the time. Judy Lewis took over the character on January 7, 1965.

Helm would let a couple of years go by between performing engagements for the rest of her career. She did two TV episodes in 1967, an odd little set of playlets in 1969, before resuming a fuller schedule in 1972. That year saw her join a touring company for the summer season, playing a small role in Remember Me,  a comedy by Ronald Alexander. She then had a starring role in Welcome Home, playing opposite Pernell Roberts, in an original play by Edmund Hartmann. The production ran three weeks at Chicago's Ivanhoe Theater.

During 1976 Helm did an episode of Kojak then she and Danny Aiello starred in a Broadway flop called Wheelbarrow Closers, which lasted for only 7 previews and 8 performances. She had a smaller role in the original production of Manny in 1979, which lasted for about a month on Broadway. She had better luck with Broadway revivals, albeit in understudy positions, for Morning's at Seven in 1980-81 and You Can't Take It With You in  1983–84.

As her stage career wound down, Helm continued doing screen work, making an episode of an obscure TV series and the film A Little Sex in 1982. She did two more films, a bit part in Shakedown (1988) and larger role in Electric Moon (1992). Her final performing work was for a TV movie, Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story in 1995.

Personal life

Helm married Robert Alba Keith on January 3, 1948, in Richmond. They were in Mister Roberts for eighteen months, did at least one television episode together, but separated on July 28, 1953. On December 8, 1954, Helm charged Keith with "introducing another woman as his wife", without naming her. Newspapers reported in January 1955 that Keith had already obtained a Mexican divorce six months earlier and remarried to dancer Judy Landon. At a settlement hearing, Helm agreed to accept the divorce and receive $250 monthly alimony from Keith. However, a few weeks later the alimony was set aside on a "quirk" of California law wherein only the party filing for divorce could claim alimony.
 
In April 1963 Helm married Walter C. Wallace, a former assistant Secretary of Labor in the Eisenhower administration. He was the personnel director for a New York paper company. The couple had one child, a daughter Laura Wallace, born in late spring 1964. They remained married until Helm's death in 2006.

According to her obituary in Variety, Helm was a long-time member of the The Player's Club and had served on its board of directors.

Stage performances

Filmography

Notes

References

External links
 

1923 births
2006 deaths
20th-century American actresses
Actresses from Florida
American film actresses
American stage actresses
American television actresses